Issues and Positioning

Let’s re-elect Donald Trump in 2020 and take back our Oregon state government by 2022! Can it be done? Of course it can. Here are some of our positions. Do they match Donald Trump’s? Yes, you will see that most of them do. But of course we don’t pretend to speak for our President. -s&d

America: Ruling Class/Country Class: In Oregon, the “Ruling class,” refers to Democratic Party progressive far-left leadership. This tiny Salem contingent is the self-anointed “elite” who are so busy turning Oregon society inside-out.* It is particularly important to note that this is maybe 50% of the Democratic party. The other 50%? A big share of them will be voting our way in 2020.

“Country class” is not a socio-economic or geographic descriptor, but refers to regular Americans like you and me, both city and rural, and of various political parties.

This issue is about who is to control America. Will it be a small contingent of social engineers who feel they are better equipped to manage our lives than we are because they think we are not intellectually and socially capable of doing it ourselves, or will it be you and me, as our American founding documents so fervently spelled out?

the ruling class has been steadily revolutionizing our Oregon society, high-handedly intruding into our personal lives, instructing us in how to think and how to live. They over-tax and over-regulate, and in those efforts creating one wasteful boondoggle after another. And now, our country class wants more than ever to be left alone. We believe that big government, big business and big finance are intertwined like never before, and perhaps Oregon has demonstrated this shift to ruling class domination more than anywhere else in the United States…except perhaps California.

*In the big picture, the term “ruling class” applies to those on the left AND the right, in Salem and in DC, who are doing their best to grow big-government.

Bureaucracy: Our government is expanding into an administrative state in which nameless managers determine, decipher and enforce way too many rules. We stand against this slide into European-style autocracy. Our surging Oregon bureaucratic-state government must be downsized into servant-status.

Donald Trump: I’m a businessman and understand the hammer-blow Oregon’s small businesses have taken over the last decades. The Trump-boom is on, no matter the caterwauling of the progressive far-left. Here is a brief summary of current economic growth over just the first year of Trump’s presidency. This is by Steve Moore, chief architect of the Trump administration’s first deregulatory efforts.

Education: I am a school-choice, charter school, home school advocate. These parents have the flexibility to provide their children a quality education in science, math and the classics, (as public schools continue to deemphasize those fundamentals while advocating the far-left political agenda.)

Forests: There are 29,000,000 acres of Oregon forests. These woodlands are nothing less than our shared garden…so why have we not been cultivating it? Although the vast majority of Oregon forest lands are under federal ownership, the Oregon governor holds enormous influence to steer DC toward proper maintenance. Our forests have been left fallow for four decades. In a major CCC-like effort,* they must be mechanically cleaned up, thinned and cultivated, while a robust yet sustainable harvesting plan is executed. THIS is how we stop wildfires while at the same time we bring our rural economies back to life. This issue is a personal cornerstone to my role as governor.

Free Market: Really, it’s the key to personal freedom for Oregonians as we compete with one another to produce better and better products and services while government takes a limited regulatory and judicial backseat, working to promote our economic success, not to punish it. Government, whatever it does, is inherently inefficient for two reasons: It’s “other people spending other people’s money,” and there is no competitive marketplace in the services it provides.

Can this change? Yes, by giving government a smaller footprint.

No matter the quality of services it produces for you and me, our state government is rewarded in tax money. The current Oregon government is the perfect illustration of the above two economic fundamentals. With poorly administrated government, taxes go higher, quality of services goes down and you and I become, essentially, wards of the very people who have been elected to serve us.

It’s backwards and it needs to change: Salem must work FOR us, not the other way around!

And when government gets smaller, what of Oregonians truly in need? There is plenty of capacity to take care those of us who are struggling for one reason or another…no one will be left out in the cold…and there will be jobs, jobs, jobs.

Guns: I support the Second Amendment as written. Statistics show that gun control has no affect on decreasing violence and crime. Per the Declaration of Independence, being able to defend oneself is a God-given right. Diana and I are both gun owners and NRA members.

Human Trafficking: Due to a combination of geography, demographics and weakened law enforcement including sanctuary state status,, Portland is often cited as the nation’s top city for child sex trafficking. Oregon’s sanctuary laws attract human smugglers who exploit migrant labor. The Oregon government must work with both state and federal law enforcement to crack down on human smuggling and keep Oregonians safe.

PERS: Oregon’s PERS crisis is worse than previously thought – with projected costs growing into the hundreds of billions of dollars. We are bound – both by law and decency – to honor our contracts with existing employees and retirees, but we MUST fix the broken system NOW and stop this exponential growth of debt.

Red Trifecta: This means Republican control of the legislature and the governor’s seat. This must happen if we are to return our government to fiscal sanity, give our government a dramatically smaller footprint in our lives and businesses, and to deliver our children and grandchildren futures that are full of opportunity.

Role of government: It’s to serve, not to dictate. Our progressive far-left leadership has steadily moved away from promoting our economic and community advancement and is now focusing on changing our family and belief systems; instructing us how to live. It really is a power-grab.

Rural Oregon: It’s devastated. I was born and raised in small town poverty in far upstate New York, and it’s plain to me that the 275 towns in Oregon with populations of 5,000 or less have been near-destroyed by ridiculous environmental strictures (e.g. logging is almost gone, commercial fishing is hamstrung, etc), while offshoring and open borders have destroyed jobs in every sector. This is a main priority for me personally: to do what is necessary to bring rural Oregon back to life.

Small Business: The heart and soul of Oregon’s economy. For 36 years, I’ve owned and operated my own small business in Bend. It employs sixty. I also own a business which specializes in saving others’ foundering businesses and organizations. With my business partner, Josh Fonger, we’ve assisted over 800 businesses in getting healthy again, and then prospering. Work the System Consultants grew out of my book, Work the System: The Simple Mechanics of Making More and Working Less, published in 2008 and now in its third edition. It’s a business bestseller.

Tax Reform/small business: New Federal tax revision proposals have give an adrenalin-shot to Oregon small business and therefore stimulated job creation. The significant reduction in the federal corporate tax rate will bring literally trillions of dollars back into the American economy, although Kate Brown has ruthlessly limited it’s implementation in Oregon.

Veterans: For years, our governments – both federal and state – have failed our veterans. If any Americans have earned ongoing benefits, it is those who have sacrificed so much for our freedom. Now we must do more.

Unions: Unions are not what they were 60 years ago. The U.S labor movement today primarily consists of government workers. Union efforts are not primarily negotiating, as they were years ago. Rather, their primary objective now is to skim from as many government workers paychecks as possible in order to fund politicians who are willing to push their agendas. This is a problem in Oregon as unions advocate for raising taxes not only on private businesses, but also individuals of every class. Long ago, business leaders learned the value of treating their employees fairly, and to abide by the vast collection of rules designed to protect workers rights.